It seems Dave Catanese of KY3 and Christopher Ave of the Post-Dispatch are confused by the substantive difference between job approval ratings and favorability ratings.

First, Catanese had a blogpost on Thursday [1] that conflated Blunt's personal favorability rating with his job approval rating --incorrectly translating Rich Chrismer's sales job about the fact that 47% of respondents in a SurveyUSA poll think favorably of Matt Blunt into 47% "approval" of Blunt.

As Dem flack Jack Cardetti later explains in a subsequent Catanese post [2], the number of people who approve of the job done by the governor and the number of people who think favorably of him are two very different things.

Yet even before Catanese could correct his mistake, the P-D's Chris Ave makes precisely the same error [3].  Ave cites the same SurveyUSA favorability numbers that Catanese does in a blogpost on the Political Fix, but titles his post "Blunt approval rating rising?"

While it's plausible that almost half of Missourians may well think favorably of Matt Blunt as an individual, it's a far smaller number who approve of the job he has done as governor.  The terminological distinction is critical, and it's one that reporters ought get right.